If atheism is the rejection of belief in gods then Buddhism is an atheistic system! Buddha himself was an agnostic who said in Deer Park, "I can not say whether there is a god, no god or not a not-god. But I can tell you how to obtain enlightenment"
Yep. I am not exempt from this. I own a carpet cleaning business and one of my best paying customers decided to talk to me about Jesus as I was cleaning. She asked if I had “a personal relationship with the Lord.” I said, I did at one time but now I have some doubts. She replied that she has doubt too. I said I used to be a minister but don’t even go to church anymore. She said she and her husband don’t go to church either. When I asked why, she said they haven’t been able to find any church that teaches the truth. Really? I said. She and her husband listen faithfully to Pastor Andrew Wommack’s radio program instead. Interesting I said. She offered me one of his books, and I said that was not necessary, “You don’t need to do that.” She insisted, saying they buy several copies and give them out so it’s no trouble at all. Not to offend her I said, “sure, that would be very nice of you,” and she handed me two of them. I thumbed through them, and once again said, they looked interesting. She told me that life isn’t worth living without Jesus, and I said I’ll look into it. Then I escaped without her offering a prayer. Bullshit! Now the next time I clean she’ll ask me what I thought of them. I’ll probably say “interesting.” ;-)
That’s how it is sometimes. We must eat crap once in a while. I’m sure if I had argued with her I would’ve lost her business and she would not recommend our services anymore.
I think "external material world" is a dualistic habit we continue to carry from religious language. It presupposes that there is some homunculus that is presented the external world in a mental theatre inside our head. But it serves our syntax well . The use of a subject and predicate places the I in the brain by tradition. Our language almost insures it. But if we posit a monism would not the only difference between a physical monisim and a mental one be semantics? What would be the means of comparison? What is internal to that spiritual/mental "external world?"
If god is omniscient there is no free will. God sees the entire contents of the world's unfolding events from beginning to completion prior to his creating or actualizing of it. If he creates the world as he sees it prior to its existence his act is the first cause of all constituents of that world. Those events will occur necessarily if god acts. The only resolution to this dilemma is, if there is a god he must sacrifice omniscience in the act of creation in order for there to be freewill. In other words he must make a boulder too big for himself to lift.
So I was talking to a Christian mother whose daughter is an atheist and sure to go to hell. I asked her if she's praying for Jesus to return to earth soon. She says yes, every day, and she thinks he'll come back soon too.
Duh. Where is the compassion when it comes to faith? Wouldn't the reasonable thing to do is pray that Jesus does NOT return soon so her daughter might come to repentance and be saved? Are believers brain dead or something?
For two years I worshipped with and studied the Baha'is. They are a group who believe that they originated from direct revelation by god. However their guardian, Shogghi Effendi, acknowledges, "A handful of students, belonging to the Shaykhi school, sprung from the Ithna-'Ashariyyih sect of Shi`ah Islam."
This is a weak argument concerning theodicy that is meant to address the premises of an ontological argument for god. It requires one to look at the attributes of god before they are assumed for the ontological argument itself. It focuses on "capability" rather than omnipotence:
I sadly learned that a team member here at DC has died. I feel a great sorrow for this since Tommy G. Baker had so much more to share. There are six posts of his that I have yet to release and will do so one at a time this week. So he will speak from the grave. But first I'll share what he told me when I asked him to join DC and also link to his previous posts:
I'm doing the copy-edits for the revised book, Why I Became an Atheist, and also co-writing the book with Dr. Randal Rauser. Use the comments section below to provide some interesting links. Cheers.
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[Written by John W. Loftus] I have extensively read both atheist and Christian literature, their blogs, journals and books, along with listening to their videos and podcasts. What I have discovered is that most people are preaching to the choir. They do not step inside each others shoes to understand where they are coming from. They do not meet on common ground, assume common assumptions, and common understandings. They are talking past one another like ships that proverbially pass each other in the night. Instead, they are speaking to people on their own side more than anything else, who seek to confirm what they have already come to accept. There is a time and a place for this, I admit. But I see it almost everywhere I look. More often than not each side speaks from a position without trying to really understand the position of the people they are trying to reach. I’ve thought a lot about this, so in the interest of starting up this conversation let me offer ten ways how to resist preaching to the choir, with specific reference to how skeptics/atheists can do this.
I doubt it, not the way it's going. Evangelical Christians are being forced to retreat from our culture. Many of them prefer home-schooling. And given the entertainment industry I doubt they can watch many TV programs that make the rest of us laugh. I have mixed feelings about this since some of the stuff is getting pretty raunchy, like the CBS sitcom "Two and a Half Men" (linked below). But if pop culture continues headed in this direction then evangelicals might as well become Amish in their way of life to maintain their moral purity. Or, if they are watching, then their morals will continue changing and with it so will their theology.
[Written by John W. Loftus] I've liked this quote by GK Chesterton from the day I read it. Doing something badly is at least doing something productive, if what you're doing is the right thing to do. It's better than not attempting something at all. At least you will learn from your efforts. All of the most important things we learned to do we started out doing them badly, like walking, talking, singing, dancing and riding a bicycle. You improve as you go. You cannot improve until you start. You begin by starting out badly. You have to be willing to fail, sometimes often, to achieve what you want to. So if you decide to do something, anything, be prepared to start out by doing it badly. If you wait until you can do something perfectly you'll do nothing at all.
That's what one Christian who comments here said to me in an email:
In the sidebar it may look as if I think highly of myself. There seems to be a lot of self-promotion going on over there. The reason that you see it is precisely because I know I'm not that important. There are new visitors here every hour who have never heard of my work. So it's to introduce them to it. Until I make it on the cover of Time Magazine, or until I am the president of an atheist organization that has billboards all over California, or until I am interviewed on Nightline, not very many people in the over-all scheme of things know of my work, especially the people in Europe. And I don't think that will happen. My books have never been on the "New Books" table at any national chain bookstore. They sit on an atheism shelf in the back of the store, if there is an atheism shelf at all. I'm not complaining. That's just the way it really is. And since I have no new arguments defending metaphysical naturalism and have decided to kick a dead horse, evangelicalism, I'm only dealing with a small slice of the pie. I know that. But I want to get the attention of the people feasting on that slice of pie.
